The Shire of Dowerin in Western Australia has invested in their own event recycling trailer, along with the Dowerin Recycling Centre to facilitate the recovery of recyclable waste in the region. Recyclables are sorted at the centre and packaged for transportation. All funds made through the recycling centre go back into the Dowerin local community. The event recycling trailer is used for a range of events including outdoor, indoor (e.g. performing arts and weddings) and sporting events. The trailer has nine 240 litre green bins with yellow lids. At events, these bins are located next to general waste bins to encourage recycling. At indoor events, a local service club provides the catering service and the team have been educated and well informed about what waste goes in the recycling bins (see photo). The majority of sporting events in Dowerin involves competing with groups from other regional shires where there are no recycling facilities. This results in a high percentage of contamination in recycling and general waste bins. The contents of the recycling bins are usually sorted within 24 hours of the event....

OzHarvest began when founding director Ronni Kahn decided she was not prepared to be part of the waste cycle that is a natural outcome of the hospitality industry. Being a part of this industry for over 20 years she had seen a lot of food wasted. So she spent time researching options for dealing with the excess food. There was no organisation in Sydney that could collect the food on a regular and professional basis so Ronni decided to set up a food rescue charity herself. Backed by The Macquarie Group Foundation which provided funds and Goodman International, which provided a van and office space, OzHarvest was established and collected its first meal in November 2004. Ronni was able to persuade a group of socially minded business people to sit on the board of OzHarvest. This voluntary board brings not only sound business disciplines to the management of OzHarvest but also compassion and generosity. Today OzHarvest is overseen by a board of socially minded business people to support the organisation and ensure sound business discipline, but also to bring compassion and generosity to the culture and management. They have grown to run a fleet of 11 vehicles and provide food to over 260 charities across Sydney and Wollongong, 55 in Newcastle, 47 in Adelaide and 22 in Brisbane. A meal is delivered for less than $1, 13 300 meals delivered per day, they have more than 240 recipient agencies and over 900 food donors. Caterers are sometimes nervous to donate food, however what has facilitated this programme working is that members of the community who donate food to charities...

The City of Boulder, Colorado’s Local Environmental Action Division (LEAD) has developed the Zero Waste Incentive to assist event organisers source compostable and recyclable containers, collection services or educational materials that facilitate Zero Waste. This is an example of a municipality not just telling event organisers what they must do, but taking an active role in enabling them to do it – both through financial incentives and through offering guidance, services and doing some of the groundwork research. Event organisers can claim a maximum US$250 rebate for expenses relating to supplying compostable and/or recyclable serviceware, waste collection services for same, and educational materials and services.[i] In addition, the city supplies the event with small three-bin container system (compost, recyclables, landfill). This is designed to go above and beyond the regular waste disposal services of the city. Event approval requires the event organisers to ensure vendors remove from the event site any items that are both non-compostable and non-recyclable, and provide only recyclable or compostable serviceware (examples of local sources are provided by the city on their website). LEAD states its mission is to engage and assist the community to reduce waste and energy use through education, services and economic assistance. www.bouldercolorado.gov [i] City of Colorado:...

There’s a thriving bike culture at Burning Man sponsored by Black Rock City’s Department of Public Works, which maintains the Yellow Bike Project, providing bikes for participants to use. They also operate a lost and found for bikes that have been misplaced during the event. So, how do you move 47 000 people around a city where driving is prohibited? The answer is bicycles, bicycles and more bicycles! Black Rock City’s Yellow Bike Project was launched in 2006, and has been growing each year. The Yellow Bikes are community property at Burning Man, and are designated to be shared within the community and available for all to enjoy. Gifting is part of the philosophy of the event and in 2007 the programme got an unexpected major kick in the pants when an anonymous donor gifted 1000 bikes to the Yellow Bike Project. The shipment of unassembled bikes hit Black Rock Station just a couple of weeks before the event. After a mammoth assembly operation, the bikes were transported to Black Rock City by truck, except the last load, which came via a pedal-powered armada of bike enthusiasts riding from the Burning Man ranch to the playa on an historical ride that’s now repeated each year. Like all new programmes in Black Rock City, it takes a couple of years to educate everyone about community bike etiquette. Bike volunteers inspected parked bikes to ensure that community bikes were not being locked or hoarded. Bolt cutters helped educate a couple of participants that community bikes are owned by, well, the community. About 80% of the Yellow Bikes were recovered after the event,...

The Festival Wood is wild forest regeneration initiative from A Greener Festival. It is not an offset scheme. The Festival Woods is an opportunity for the festival community to give something back to the great outdoors that we love to enjoy. A festival legacy that will grow and grow. A Greener Festival chose to team with Trees for Life to create the Festival Wood, due to their proven and outstanding commitment to restoring, protecting and nurturing the wild forests in the Scottish Highlands. “Trees for Life’s vision is to restore a wild forest, which is there for its own sake, as a home for wildlife and to fulfill the ecological functions necessary for the wellbeing of the land itself.” Trees are planted in natural distribution patterns at sites that offer maximum benefits for biodiversity. Trees for Life’s focus is on native species grown from locally collected seed, including Scots pine, willow, rowan, birch, hazel, alder, holly, aspen and bird cherry. The Festival Woods are beginning in Dundreggan, an area of 10,000 acres of wild land near Loch Ness. We invite festivals, festival-goers, artists, suppliers and the whole festival community to get involved and donate trees, at £5 each, to this lasting positive restoration. We hope to one day see the Festival Woods flourish to become a diverse Festival Forest, rich with biodiversity and protected wilderness. The first 300 trees are donated by our friends and coach travelers with Big Green Coach, the team at A Greener Festival and a wonderful 100 tree donation in loving memory of Aidan ‘Tig’ Challis. Visit and Volunteer Dundreggan has a visitor area so...